Anyway – my eyes are really light sensitive (I usually wear sunglasses outside), and the flash on the weird camera Kinko’s used to take passport photos was … well, it was really bright.

And I blinked a lot.

So what normally would have been a simple photo (i.e., “look here, click … and you’re done”) took a little longer than normal. Those few minutes were filled with the Kinko’s staff person saying things like “no, you blinked again” and “Can you keep your eyes open for the photo?” etc.

I’m sure it probably only took like 5 minutes, but I was embarrassed and it seemed like it took forever.

“Flash” forward 10 years, and I need another passport photo! This time, instead of having a business take the photo for me, I tried something different – I just used an app on my iPhone.

I did a bit of research, and found two passport-photo-taking apps that were recommended by travel bloggers:

I took photos with both apps – not sure which app I ended up using. But they both worked fine. Both apps have semi-transparent outlines that show where your head and shoulders should be in the photo, etc.

The hardest part? Finding a plain, neutral-colored wall in my house. My wife helped – she took the photos. Then I printed those out at a local Walgreens, mailed in my renewal forms … and now I have a new passport. Simple stuff!

Ever wondered what people are doing on their smartphones and tablets? Want to know what’s the newest trend is in mobile social media platforms?

Look no further than your phone’s app store.

Here are some things you can learn by looking at the Apple App Store:

What’s popular – what people are interested in, what’s captured their interest.

Most popular social media tools.

What people are doing – for example, sharing photos, playing games, etc.

Emerging trends – see what’s experimental and what’s taking off.

Maybe you’ll even find an easier way to do stuff

For example, when I take a peek at the app store, I see this:

Social media is huge. Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter are in the top 20 free apps.

The election just happened – CNN is #2 on the list of free apps. Fox news is #16 and CBS is #47.

Visual sharing is popular – hence Snapchat and Instagram.

Video – Youtube is #5 on the list, Instagram is #6.

There are apparently a LOT of guitar players in the world – Tabs & Chords is #15 on the list of Paid apps.

Top Grossing apps – games, video (i.e., Netflix), and music (Pandora and Spotify)

The most interesting thing about this sneaky little trend watching tool? The app lists will most likely be completely different in 6 months or so. Try it out as a trend watching tool, and see what you discover!

But this is 2014, so Joyce also called the ChromVille developers (who live in Spain) using Google Hangouts, and the LIS students were able to have a really cool conversation with them (and with Shannon Miller, who also visited viaÂ the hangout).

The photo in this post shows the developers previewingÂ their not-yet-released updated version of ChromVille to the students.

Just sorta mind-boggling to me. I graduated from Library School in 1995 (University of Tennessee). Technology things like LCD projectors existed, but were hard to deal with. Video conferencing was around, but didn’t work all that great. Most of my classes involving that type of technology were spent, quite honestly, watching the professors trying to make things work.

Today however, that stuff is so much easier. If you have adequate wifi, you can connect to practically anyone in the world. Wow.

Besides Google Hangouts, Joyce was using some online content curation tools, some Ed Tech stuff I’d never heard of, and Dropbox as part of her class. And probably a whole bunch of other handy online tools, too. All of which help make her class easy to deal with – collaboration and connecting with her and other students (and app developers in Spain) is a breeze.

The coolest thing? All of this technology helps make the face-to-face class time that much more enriching.